I was sound asleep when bone-chilling cold water crashed into me

Waking me up from a dream so bizarre that it felt, I don't know how to tell how it felt

I don't remember falling asleep but I must have

"Are you up?" I heard old Bu calling me

"Yes, master Bu" I got up

"Well let's get started with your new training lesson one never sleep until you are sure it is safe to do so"

old by began to lecture me about awareness of your surrounding, how to never let your hair down

I wanted to ask questions about yesterday like what is a Practitioner, and when he heard my name he just said western what did he mean by that?

But old Bu never gave me a chance he continuously spoke for an hour without brake about how cruel this world is and how I should protect myself

When he finally stopped I jumped at the chance and asked the question

"What is a practitioner and how are they different from the cultivators"

I didn't hear an inedible answer but instead, I got a long minute of silence

"What do you know about this world and cultivator" old Bu finally spoke

I told what I knew which wasn't much the name of the continent and how cultivators used Qi to attain immortality

"Pitiful" old Bu said and sighed

"Listen up boy and listen well"

Old Bu began to tell me about this world in detail

He began by explaining to me that the night sky I see with the stars and all is an entire large, they called the starry sea among this start sea there are multiple plains.

Plains where mini-worlds where life exists

The plains with multiple energies such as Qi were called sport planes and the ones that didn't have any energies were called dead planes

The spiritual planes were divided into mortal plane, celestial plane and heavenly plane with low, medium and high-density levels of energies respectively

That this world was of a mortal plain.

Plains as I understood them as planets had a consciousness called the planer guardian.

Each plane has a planer conscious a pseudo god who watches and protects the world only the people born in the certain world are generally allowed to live in it if an alien race comes to the world planar conscious tries everything in its power to kill it,

Even giving rewards do kill the alien who came.

There are 9 heavenly planes 7 of whom are controlled by a great faction 2 of these planes are not controlled by any faction

And above all this is a place called great plane which is as huge as the start sea, old by did not further expand on this point I'm curious to know why

Every single one of these planes contains a multitude of sentient species such as humans

Every single one of these species has the way to harness certain energy for various reasons immortality being one of them.

These beings were dubbed practitioners.

The 7 factions were such

1.' The Heavenly court- practitioners using Qi to gain mortality, they are called an immortal cultivator

2.' The star court'- - practitioners harnessing the energies from the stars, they call themselves the stellar cultivators

3.' The Monastery '- this faction's practitioner uses unknown energies to gain many magical powers and body strength they call themselves Buddhist monks

4. ' Monster clan'- well I don't need to elaborate do I the monster clan means every beast such as dragons, tigers cranes using spiritual energies

5. ' The heavenly pantheon'- they are beings born from the chaos and call themselves gods according to old Bu almost nothing is known about them

6. 'The temple'- these practitioners use the elemental energies to temper their body or use the energy to form a mana core they are called knights and mages respectively they are ruled by the high conical of kings

7. Elvish court- the elves use every possible way to harness any energy. To gain power they do not allow any other race to intermingle

Beyond these 7 great factions, there are others the martial artists, none spiritual beasts, Confucianism, ghosts, ghosts gods, devil gods, insects, wizards, sorcerers, witches, spiritual objects, barbarians, dwarfs and many other

Then there are the two heavenly planes that in conquering able are the netherworld and the Great world, according to old by any one of them is near 10 times the size of any one of the 7 heavens

Then he started to tell me about the ' the demonic way '

Any creature that uses or harnesses the choice Qi of darkness is called demonic cultivator because of the dark element the dark emotion and dark desires of the practitioners take control of them making them half-mad and hence very dangerous

Old Bu went on forever about these practitioners I was starting to regret asking him Even though it was a lot of useful information was useful it felt unnecessary

Then he came to an important topic this world practitioners are divided into 10 grades, every practice is different and hence has different grade names but to memorise all of them was ludicrous

So, except your practice names, others were just registered as 1 to 10th grade

A perfect example would be an immortal cultivator at grade 2 would be called foundation realm master whereas a stellar cultivator will be called origin Real master,

As soon he explained to me the different grades of multiple practices there was a sudden silence

I was too engrossed in my thoughts to notice anything wrong

In my mind the questions

Of who was this old man how di he knows so much why does he know so much and what does he want me to do were echoing constantly

Suddenly Old Bu spoke in my mind starting me

" Boy, do you know that in all the world only a few lucky ones can practice"

I was confused about what he had said

" What do you mean?" I ask

"No, matter what the practice method anyone chooses, the practitioner need either extraordinary wealth or some sort of fate and luck"

I was more confused by this sentence

Old Bu sighed

" For immortal cultivation, you need spiritual root, for Buddhist cultivation you need wisdom root for the martial artist you need bone root, and for every practice, you need some sort of heavenly blessing"

I was shocked, yes no normal person can just start to cultivate you need the heavenly blessing as old Bu had put it

"Out of every 10,000 maybe one is lucky or fated enough to be born with this blessing and out of every 10,000 blessed 1 is found and trained and out of every 10,000 few have sufficient aptitudes and to go further on this path"

Old Bu continued

"I was born in a mortal family in fact I already had 3 children before my master found me"

old Bu chuckled after he said that to himself

"I was just an ordinary farmer when one day while I was working in the field a man flying on a sword descended from the sky," old Bu said

"He told me I had extraordinary talent that I was fated to be a cultivator and for this talent, he wanted to accept as a disciple"

I think this is an invitation speech but the old man continued and a new story emerged

"At the time all I thought was this was my chance to become an immortal without a second I abandoned my family to go with my master"

" I was such a fool back then"

"My master was a casual cultivator so he didn't have much of an inheritance, I had to fight just to get the most basic resources and for long durations of time I had to go into secluded cultivation sessions, I grew tired and lonely I wanted to go back to my family," Old Bu said in a sad tone

"So, one I asked the master to go back to my family for that my master severely scolded me on how a cultivator should cut off his mortal ties and locked me to for 10 years"

Harsh I thought but where was this going

"When I came out I was still ever to see my wife and children, but before I reached the foundation establishment realm master did not allow me to move on my own" old Bu said

"It took me 46 years to reach the foundation realm, when did with master permission I went out for experience and without telling my master I sneaked towards my mortal home"

Oh boy I thought imagining what happened next

" When I reached my former village I found it to have become a small town with my family being the wealthiest there"

"As I came to my family's door excited to see them again, there I found my wife had died of old age and three sons are now grown and were with their own families wanted nothing to with me, they had called me worse than I dog"

" I was shocked and angry at them tell them that they were jealous because I got to become immortal and they did not, I even tries to bribe them with a chance for becoming like me to prove that they would accept such offer in heartbeat like me and would leave their families as well"

"But they all refused me, I felt heartbroken and hurt so I left"

" year's went by I had become a gold core realm master my master had sat down not to mention I Was given an inheritance of a diviner by an opportunity I had earlier in my life"

"But I felt more alone than ever, I was felt incomplete till one I met my junior sister Yi"

Where was this going I asked in my mind

" She was a qi gathering junior when I met soon she became the love of my life we even had a child together with a beautiful little girl"

" at the time my only wish was that I could be with her for eternity but fate won't allow it her qualification for cultivation was poor she failed to enter the foundation establishment not once but thrice "

"I had to watch her die as her lifespan exhausted"

Old Bu paused

"After her death, I found out my daughter did not have a spiritual root"

"I was Devasted by this, I had to watch baby girl grow old and die"

"I refused this fate I decided to fight against it I tried every method possible but everywhere I went I found closed doors, my daughter didn't have any kind of root"

I felt sorry for old Bu, but what could I do

" I searched every possible way for my daughter not to die"

" but try as I may I couldn't change the iron fact the to cultivate and practice any type of energy you needed a root"

This news made me feel dread I was scared that my situation was the same as that of the little girl that old Bu spoke off

" After spending countless resources and a lot of effort by using my divine technique I exhausted one-fourth of my life span I divine a solution"

I was listening attentively

"I found not one but three methods that we could cultivate without a natural-born root"

I was super excited these methods could be my salvation, that I could cultivate

"But I was too late by the time I came back with the methods it had been 30 years for me it was a short time but for my daughter, it lifetime she already had a family with 2 children and a husband"